


Taking Temperatures

by ProseApothecary



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst and Fluff, M/M, S5E3 Coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 08:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20793977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProseApothecary/pseuds/ProseApothecary
Summary: Patrick had invited him to stay, but David still felt weird about being here. He had, after all, basically been evicted. Very gently evicted. Does it even count as an eviction if you hadn’t moved in yet?





	Taking Temperatures

Patrick had invited him to stay, but David still felt weird about being here. He had, after all, basically been evicted. Very gently evicted. Does it even count as an eviction if you hadn’t moved in yet?

He sinks his head back into the pillow.

It’s not the eviction (pre-eviction?) that bothers him, really. If he’s being honest, he hadn’t been entirely ready for it either.

It’s the fact that he’d been so _careful_, quick to learn the lessons of previous relationships.

Don’t make the first move. Don’t show your hand.

He’s _way_ past the point of showing his hand. He’s playing 52 pickup with a deck full of hearts.

Patrick looks over at David. He can see his eyes are wide and anxious, even in the dark of the bedroom.

“David. I can hear you thinking.”

David’s thinking about his 6th birthday party, when he’d followed his mother into the kitchen, watching her put ice cubes in her drink.

She’d knelt down, pink gin spilling over the rim.

_Just like ice, _she’d said, running her fingers over his cheek, just for a second._ Cold as you are, you stick to people._

Alexis had run past, giggling, after stealing a boy’s cap.

_Try to be more of an inferno, dear_, she’d said, watching her go. _They can be flighty, and destructive. But people remember the thrill, and the warmth._

And then she’d left him, sitting alone in the silent kitchen.

Whenever he remembers it, he can hear the deafening silence again.

He frowns.

_Usually_, when he remembers it, he can hear the deafening silence again.

“-so then I told Twyla that we would love her cousin Roman to look after the shop for a few days. And if he wants to operate his mysterious side business from there, that’s fine. Maybe he shouldn’t bring in his Uzi, but-”

David turns onto his side. “What?”

“Oh,” Patrick says with a smile. “that got your attention.”

“Um. Sorry. Daydreaming.”

Patrick’s thumb traces David’s temple, gentle as anything.

“Where did you go?”

“Just thinking. About this.” David takes a breath. “You know that…you can tell me. If I start going too fast. Or too slow. I’m not good at gauging these things. So you can tell me. If I start fucking this up.”

Patrick darts in for a kiss.

“You’re not going to fuck it up.”

“I could.” It doesn’t have to be him showing his cards too soon. There are a million things he could do wrong. “I can be…emotional.”

_Thank you, boy in Toulouse with the curly hair._

“And clingy.”

_The Hawaiian bar-hopper._

“And neurotic.”

_The Hollywood starlet._

“And a self-absorbed perfectionist with abandonment issues.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “That one was very specific.”

“I may have dated my therapist for a little while.”

“Ah,” says Patrick, landing another peck. “Can I put forward a rebuttal?”

David nods, wondering when the tears started welling up, and how to get rid of them.

“Your exes were assholes.”

David laughs, regretting it when he feels tear tracks down his cheeks.

Patrick wipes them away gently with his thumb. It reminds David of the days of undereye serum, back when he had to make up excuses to touch Patrick, for Patrick to touch him.

“All of them? Statistically unlikely.”

Patrick thinks. “Maybe not Stevie.”

“Oh no, definitely Stevie.”

Patrick grins. This time, David’s the one to lean forward and steal a kiss.

“Just promise you’ll tell me. If I do fuck up.”

“Oh, you’re going to fuck up.”

“Ok. So a little less honesty was what I was looking for-”

“I’m going to fuck up too. But we’re not going to fuck _this_ up. _This_ might be un-fuck-up-able.”

David’s still thinking about being left alone at that party. And at bars, in bedrooms, in restaurants, theatres and galleries. So he says, “Can you give me a run-down? All our future fuck-ups.”

“Well, at some stage you’ll have a momentary lapse of taste and order 100 tie-dye scarves for the store.”

“I would never-”

“We’ll go on a holiday to some island paradise and I’ll forget to bring sunscreen.”

“Much more likely. Your poor, translucent skin.”

“_When_ we move in together, I’ll utterly fuck up the furniture assembly.”

A small smile creeps on to David’s face. “We’ll be sleeping on the kitchen counters.”

“You’ll try to cook dinner for me once and almost burn down the apartment.”

“Ok,” David says. “how about we go back to your fuck-ups?”

“That was it,” says Patrick. “Just the sunscreen and the furniture. It’s going to be smooth sailing for me for the next few decades.”

“Don’t worry,” David says. “I’m willing to share mine.”

Patrick smiles and fans his fingers across David’s cheek.

“_Such_ a warm-hearted gesture.”

“That’s me,” David says, pulling him into a kiss. “Warm.”

**Author's Note:**

> I spent ten minutes deciding how many hyphens to put in the word 'un-fuck-up-able'. It's an extremely fuck-up-able word.


End file.
